Individual Differences: work ability
and coping
Coping is an important part of the overall
stress process. However, it is perhaps the
least well understood despite many years
of research. It has been suggested that
coping has three main features. First, it is a
process: it is what the person actually
thinks and does in a stressful encounter.
Second, it is context-dependent: coping is
influenced by the particular encounter or
appraisal that initiates it and by the re-
sources available to manage that en-
counter. Finally, coping as a process is and
should be defined ‘independent of out-
come’; that is, independently of whether it
was successful or not. There have been
two approaches to the study of coping:
that which attempts to classify the differ-
ent types of coping strategies and produce
a comprehensive taxonomy, and that
which considers coping as a problem-solv-
ing process.
Most contemporary theories of stress allow
for individual differences in the experience
of stress, and in how and how well it is
coped with. Individual difference variables
have been investigated as either: (1) com-
ponents of the appraisal process, or (2)
moderators of the stress-health relation-
ship. Hence, researchers have asked, for ex-
ample, to what extent are particular
workers vulnerable to the experience of
stress, or, for example, to what extent does,
say, ‘hardiness’ moderate the relationship
between job characteristics and worker
health? This Report suggests that this dis-
tinction between individual differences as
components of the appraisal process and
moderators of the stress-outcome relation-
ship can be easily understood in terms of
transactional models of stress.
The experience of stress is partly depen-
dent on the individual’s ability to cope with
the demands placed on them by their
work, and on the way in which they sub-
sequently cope with those demands, and
relates issues of control and support. More
information is required on the nature,
structure and effectiveness of individuals’